Mike,
BlackGold has survived -33F in MN according to Bob Purvis. WhiteGold is also supposed to be hardy to -30F. The old variety Gold is the purported to be the hardiest sweet cherry (and parent of BlackGold) and has survived -38F.
Cheers!
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Matt, I hope you enjoyed every one! They are a pretty fruit too! I take it the birds left them alone.
Thanks for the input guys. I added Blackgold this last spring, then, after flourishing for 2 years my Kristin sweet suddenly up and died (shortly after getting ate on a bit by a deer, didn’t think it was that bad, not sure if there was a connection), so I will be adding Whitegold this coming spring
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I got a few, and the birds got a few. That’s how the cookie crumbles!
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Birds are pretty avid for my WG, which are a dark pink and not white at all, so they aren’t fooled. I had to net it last year
Not sweet cherries, but man they are top rate cherries for sure.
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Looking good Mat. My trees are all still flowering, and the Evens is still yet to bloom. I have lots of flowers. I took a whole top branch off my Bing and dusted all my branches on my Rainier tree and Black Tartarian a couple different days. I then stuck it in a bottle taped to a post right in with the flowering branches of the Rainier. I grafted to those trees too to help but they only have a couple blossoms. I’m hoping for my first real set. I bought a fence charger to help with coons. I wish I had time to set that up now but I’m busy grafting and hauling firewood. Good luck with your cherries.
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Here is a picture of my Emperor Francis sweet cherry tree. It is the only sweet cherry that has done well for me here in the northeast. Just like Matt says, I got a few and the birds got a few. The worst culprits were the crows and squirrels as usual. The picture below of the Emperor Francis sweet cherries in the bowl shows the cherries close to ripeness but not completely ripe. I eat them like this so I can get a few before the critters.
My tree was bought from Stark Bros and was a tiny whip. Make sure you have plenty of room if you plant the standard sweet cherries. 6’ ladder in picture for comparison.
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Ah! No blush to them but the birds still come?
I, too, got a standard cherry from Stark’s, back when I knew nothing. It made a gorgeous shade tree, right where I don’t want any shade.
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I too had no idea how big these standard cherry trees would get. The trunk on my EF tree is 11 inches now. The critters got way more than their share of cherries this year with brown rot getting it’s share too. Two years ago I ate many pounds of cherries (10?), this year maybe two pounds.
I had Balaton tart cherry, Whitegold sweet cherry, and Lapins sweet cherry at one time. All of these either got root rot or leaf spot or both.
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My standard Stella, the flathead borers got. Likely because of all the pruning I did to try to control its height
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I have two trees netted right now. They are getting to big to net. I stepped out to look at them and I had chipmunks running around inside the Rainier tree. I yelled at them and they froze. They tried to hide peeking at me like oh no. One was on the outside at the top looking at me. I yelled again and they ran down and got out the bottom. I had to scold the one on the outside a couple times. Then I retied the bottom to the trunk. I’m using a 50’ by 8’ net on that tree. it goes around twice. My other tree has three smaller nets with holes. It’s a Bing. The cherries are almost ripe. They really got big in the last week. We haven’t had any rain in three weeks till today. It poured for about five minutes! At least I have rain water in my barrels now.
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Just got my Black Gold netted today. It is the only cherry tree left standing. It rained so much during bloom time. The fruit set plenty at first but then, half turned yellow and drooped. I think it must be a pollination issue because of that much rain.
This year, the fruit are a lot smaller than previous years. Not sure why. Hopefully, they will size up during the next few weeks. Next is to spray Indar through the net 
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I thought mine were going to be smaller too, but they grew as big as the store bought ones now. I’m just waiting for full ripeness.
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I hope so. Can’t remember them being this small at this time of the year, three weeks before they ripe.
Just sprayed Indar, through the bird net an hour ago. Just one spray, should be sufficient to stop brown rot.
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I caught another chipmunk inside my net. The pore little guy was so scared. He ran circles frantically trying to figure a way out. He found it right in front of my face in between the net laps of wrapping a net twice around. He said he was sorry that his brothers told him of this unbelievable fruit that he just had to try. The Rainier cherries are just getting sweet. They have been more yellow in past years, but this year they are more red. The birds are getting my Bing cherries with the poor job of three nets not covering the whole tree. They are striping leaves too, and leaving some cherries on the ground. The cherries are mostly red but they need to get dark red. They need to make tube netting that is like the flex hose for a dryer, but out of net on the outside. Then you can slip the single branches of cherries inside.
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